


A Season in Amiens

by merryghoul



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Middle Ages, Missing Scene, Torture, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 04:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7560031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I once spent a season getting tied up every night by a young monk in a flagellant's monastery in Amiens.  We both learned a lot that year." -- Alys (Ashildr), "The Triple Knife"</p><p>A brief glimpse into the year Alys spent in the monastery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Season in Amiens

**Author's Note:**

> As indicated in the fic summary, this fic is a scene inspired by lines from the short story "The Triple Knife" from _The Legends of Ashildr._ However, knowledge of the short story is not needed to read this fic.
> 
> Ashildr's name from the time she spent in the monastery isn't revealed in this short story, so I decided to call Ashildr by the name she calls herself in "The Triple Knife," Alys, for this fic.
> 
> For the Doctor Who Minor Characters Fest Mini Round #1, [](http://seasonofkink.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**seasonofkink**](http://seasonofkink.dreamwidth.org/) , prompt "obscenity," and [](http://hc-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://hc-bingo.dreamwidth.org/)**hc_bingo** , prompt "dubcon."

The Church, for some reason, thought Alys—once known as many names, but her very first was Ashildr—was a heretic. She was sent to be questioned at a monastery near Amiens, France. Except the monastery wasn't a typical monastery. The monks there liked to devote themselves to God by flagellating themselves. And when they weren't flagellating themselves, they flagellated alleged heretics to get them to confess to heresy. 

The Church assigned a young monk to administer Alys' torture. The young monk lead Alys to the monastery's basement. There, various torture devices were littered around the basement. A heretic's fork was prepared on a table, next to a whip, thumbscrews, and tongs that were used to cut noses, nipples, and breasts. There was a barrel pillory, a foot press, a rack, a breaking wheel and an iron chair. The monk was explicitly told by the church not to use any of these implements on Alys. They wanted her to confess to her sins, but not have anything showing that she was tortured on her face and hands. The rest of her body was fair game. The monk knew exactly what he needed to do to get her to confess.

The young monk forcefully stripped Alys of her dress and threw it in a corner of the basement. “Hands up,” the young monk commanded. Alys raised her hands. He tied together her wrists with rope tight enough so she couldn't move her arms. He then hoisted Alys in the air on the dungeon's strappado. It took a while; the wheel that moved the strappado was old, heavy, and covered in rust. The young monk strained himself operating the device.

Alys tried to free herself from her bonds. She didn't say anything, but she was impressed. Unlike others who had failed to imprison her throughout her long life, the young monk knew how to tie tight knots and bonds. He had to if he wanted his victims alive so they would confess to him. How could anyone get a confession out of someone who fell from the floor and died?

The young monk grabbed the whip from the table. “You will denounce your heresy and confess to your sins,” the young monk said to Alys. 

“I never spoke out against the church and I have no sins to confess.” 

Alys could hear the leather whip being dragged against the floor. “If you are planning to whip me,” Alys said to the young monk, “you will find that I am quite durable. And I have a high threshold for pain.”

“You will confess or you will receive twenty lashes to the back.”

“I have nothing to confess.”

The young monk struck her across her back. The strike left a red mark. Alys flinched, then gasped. She squeezed her hands into fists. Being hit at was nothing new to her. 

The young monk grinned. He would not admit it to his brothers, but he adored seeing the marks, and even the occasional pricks of blood, whipping brought. “Confess,” the monk said to Alys.

Alys laughed. “You have nineteen more lashes to give me. I want them all.”

The young monk continued to whip Alys. She refused to confess because she had nothing to confess to. But she continued to berate the young monk as he whipped her. “Harder,” she said after one lash. “You like this, don't you?” she said after another. 

The young monk usually liked punishing his prisoners, but he didn't want to admit it to his brothers. The brothers didn't approve of lust in any form. Every insult Alys gave the young monk enraged him, and every insult drove the young monk to strike Alys harder to quiet her. He couldn't focus on the bright red blush growing on her back like he intended to. He wanted her to shut up. Striking Alys worked, at least until Alys could insult the monk again. 

After twenty lashes, the monk lowered Alys from the strappado. But he kept her bonds. He took her to a wooden board. He wanted desperately to trace Alys' scars and cuts with his fingers, but he knew he could not do so, for fear of being caught doing something he thought the brothers would consider a sin. 

The monk freed Alys from her rope bonds and pushed her onto the board. He restrained her wrist and ankles with iron cuffs attached to chains on the board. 

The young monk prepared a brine solution for Alys. The brine would heal Alys' bruises and cuts, enough so that the young monk could whip her again the next day until she confessed to heresy. When the young monk returned with the brine solution, the Mire kit inside Alys had healed all her bruises and cuts.

The young monk dropped his brine solution. “How did you...”

“I told you I am durable,” Alys said. 

“Who healed you?”

“A stranger from a long time ago. A stranger you will never meet. Maybe someday I will die. Until that day comes, I cannot, all because of that stranger.” 

“You are not human.”

“I am very much human.” 

“The only way to be rid of you is to burn you.”

“I might survive that. I do not know. But would you not have me alive? Would you not prefer to drag me from my cell, strip me naked, and give me twenty lashes every night instead of burning me? You do not know how long it will be until you get to torture another heretic. And, to be honest, this whipping has awakened feelings inside of me I thought died a long time ago. I will not act on them in front of you. You swore a vow to be chaste. I will act on them in private, alone, where my voice can mingle with the howls of the wolves.” 

The young monk abruptly stood up. “I must clean up the brine before I escort you back to your cell.”

The young monk left the torture chamber. Alys laughed, knowing what the young monk was going to do before he returned. 

 

The meetings between the young monk and Alys were less forceful after that first encounter. The monk would escort Alys to the torture chamber and whip her. The young monk watched Alys' bruises and cuts heal before his eyes, since there was no need to soak her wounds with the brine. Then they went their separate ways, to spend time with themselves in private. 

Alys was whipped by the monk for a year. The brothers eventually learned the young monk received gratification from whipping Alys. They dismissed him and banned him from living anywhere near Amiens. But Alys managed to escape the monastery before another monk could punish her for heresy. 

Alys managed to record the encounters in her journals at night, after singing with the wolves. In her future, sometimes Alys—who, by that time in her life, renounced the name of Alys, and was going by various other names—would pull out her journal and read about her time with the young monk at the monastery in Amiens. If anything, reading about that part of her life reminded her that she could feel lust. And lust, although it wasn't the same as love, was a feeling the woman who formerly called herself Alys liked to feel from time to time.


End file.
